The Unexploited West / A Compilation of all of the authentic information available at the present time as to the Natural Resources of the Unexploited Regions of Northern Canada

by Ernest J. Chambers

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL.

“The Fertile Belt.”—Influence of a Catchy Expression.—Northern Canada still a Terra Incognita.—The Hudson’s Bay Company.—Early Explorations.—Kelsey, Hearne, Mackenzie, Franklin, Back, Simpson and Dease.—The More Recent Explorers, Official and Unofficial.—Parliamentary Investigations.

When in 1867 the four principal British provinces in the eastern portion of North America were confederated under the British North America Act and became the original Dominion of Canada, the vast regions of the west vaguely known under several designations such as the “Hudson’s Bay Territory,” the “Northwest Territory” and “Rupert’s Land,” and extending from the United States boundary to Arctic sea, and from the western frontier of Ontario, James bay and Hudson bay to Rocky mountains, remained under the rule of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The Fathers of Confederation had in view, however, a union of all the British possessions on the continent, and one of the measures passed at the first session of the first parliament of the new Dominion provided for the opening of negotiations for the union of the Hudson bay territory with the confederated provinces. Thanks largely to the diplomatic offices of the British government, the rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company were eventually bought out by Canada, and this vast territory, estimated at upwards of two million three hundred thousand square miles, was transferred to the Dominion of Canada in the year 1867.

The cash consideration obtained by the company from the Dominion for the relinquishment of its rights and titles was the sum of three hundred thousand pounds sterling; but there was also a provision for the retention by the Company of blocks of land adjoining each of its stations; and the right was allowed the company for fifty years, from 1870, to “claim in any township or district within the fertile belt in which land is set out for settlement, grants of land not exceeding one-twentieth part of the land so set out.”

For the purpose of the agreement the “Fertile Belt” was described therein as being bounded as follows:—“On the south by the United States boundary; on the west by Rocky mountains; on the north by the northern branch of the Saskatchewan; on the east by Lake Winnipeg, Lake of the Woods, and the waters connecting them.”

The Term “Fertile Belt.”

There is some uncertainty as to the origin of the term “Fertile Belt”, thus arbitrarily defined in the historical agreement with the Hudson’s Bay Company; but this much is certain:—the term came into general use after the publication of the reports of the official exploratory expeditions of Captain John Palliser of the British Army, of S. J. Dawson, C.E., and Professor Henry Y. Hind of Trinity College, Toronto. Captain Palliser was commissioned by the British government to explore “that portion of British North America which lies between the northern watershed and the frontier of the United States, and between Red river and Rocky mountains and to endeavour to find a practicable route through them.” The Dawson-Hind expeditions (there were two) were under the auspices of the government of United Canada (Upper and Lower Canada) and were for the purpose of inquiring into the resources of Red river colony and the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan countries. The British expedition extended over parts of four years—1857, 1858, 1859 and 1860, while the Canadian ones covered two years—1857 and 1858.

In the preface to his report, published in 1860, Professor Hind wrote:—“The establishment of a new colony in the basin of Lake Winnipeg, and the discovery of a Fertile Belt of country extending from the Lake of the Woods to Rocky mountains, give to this part of British America a more than passing interest.” In another place Professor Hind wrote:—“North of the great American desert there is a broad slip of Fertile Country, rich in water, wood, and pasturage, drained by the North Saskatchewan, and a continuation of the fertile prairies of Red and Assiniboine rivers. It is a physical reality of the highest importance to the interests of British North America that this continuous Belt can be settled and cultivated from a few miles west of Lake of the Woods to the passes of Rocky mountains, and any line of communication, whether by waggon road or railroad, passing through it, will eventually enjoy the great advantage of being fed by an agricultural population from one extremity to the other.”